Of Appel’s compiler texts, I’ve heard that Modern Compiler Implementation in ML is the one to get. The C++ and Java variants were literal translations from the ML code so they aren’t very idiomatic or nice to read. I’ve heard excellent things about the book from compiler hackers I respect such as Nikodemus Siivola and Slava Pestov. shrug

Re footnote 2: Appel’s compiler impl books are pretty good beginner compiler writer books. What’s interesting is that they decompose an actual compiler (written in various languages depending on the book) rather than present a series of techniques in pseudo-code that you have to figure out how and when to apply.

Unfortunately, that also means you’ll get a pretty good intro to techniques used in that particular compiler while missing out on techniques that might be useful in other cases, e.g. for other target language types.

I was sad to see that Practical Common Lisp was not on the list. It was one of my favorite programming books (not just Lisp specific). It was really great because you built real projects towards the end. It focused on getting you up and writing code in LISP, spending some time on dev environments and doing solving some practical problems.

Maybe not the best for exploring the full power of LISP, but a really great intro.

Hi fogus,
just a few days ago I attended a presentation about List machines..
Afterwards I asked if made sense to buy the book “The Architecture of Symbolic Computers “(Mcgraw-Hill Series”). I received the advice that the book
is all in all too general and the lecturer would not recommend the book…
May I therefore ask what you liked about the book? I’m just asking because the book is quite expensive…..

This is great. I collect old and weird lisp books. A couple of suggestions: LISPCraft by Robert Wilensky (CL was dynamically scoped when this was written). Object-Oriented programming in Common Lisp by Sonya E Kleene, LISP by Winston (I’ve got 2nd and 3rd editions for some reason)